Category: food and drink

Is this a scam?

October 24, 2024 • 5:26 pm

I noticed this not long ago when a Jewish friend and I fasted for Yom Kippur by getting burgers and fries at Five Guys (a favorite hangout of Barask Obama, who isn’t Jewish . . ).  I spotted a free-refill soft drink machine to the side, and you’re welcome to refill your cup as often as you wish.

The issue is this: they charge you more for a “large” soft drink than for a “small” one, even though you can drink as much as you want. The difference in price just reflects the size of the empty cup they give you when you order. What is going on here? Why would anybody in their right mind pay more for a larger empty cup? (n.b. again: you’re welcome to drink as much as you want).

Prowling the Strip this afternoon looking for lunch, I finally wound up at Dave’s Hot chicken (it’s nearly impossible to get healthy food on the Strip).  And, mirabile dictu, there was the same issue: a all-you-can drink soft drink machine available in the small shack coupled with large and small empty cups having different prices.

What is the purpose of this? To make money by bilking the people who don’t see the drink machine? Or are there some lazy people who can’t be bothered to go back to the machine for a refill?

More on the Strip tomorrow. I have concluded that this is the entrance to Hell.

I have landed!

October 24, 2024 • 10:00 am

When flying to Las Vegas know you’re in another world the moment you step off the plane and enter the terminal. This is what you see. The waiting passengers are right next to a bank of new-generation slot machines.  No, there is no pulling of handles: they’re all electronic and replete with sounds and flashing lights:

I ubered to the hotel where the CSICon meetings are taking place, which happens to be the Horseshoe Las Vegas (for luck I suppose, formerly known as Bally’s).  The main floor is completely filled with slots roulette tables, and other venues of gambling which have been called “a tax on stupidity”:

After waiting four hours to check into my room (I spent it in the food court reading a book I’m reviewing), I finally got a place to stay. CSICon begins this morning; the website is here and you can see the schedule here. Today is mostly workshops, but tonight at 8 pm physicist Brian Cox will receive the Richard Dawkins Award,  As noted by Wikipedia, the award is

. . . . currently presented by the Center for Inquiry to an individual associated with science, scholarship, education, or entertainment, and who “publicly proclaims the values of secularism and rationalism, upholding scientific truth wherever it may lead.” They state that the recipient must be approved by Dawkins himself.

The award will be announced by CFI and Dawkins Foundation President Robyn Blumner, and then there will be a video by Dawkins explaining why Cox is getting the award, and that is followed by the formal presentation (it will be a lovely staatuette) by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (see below).  Cox will then give a keynote address. Tyson himself got the award in 2022, and I was honored to join the panoply in 2015.

Last night a few people forgathered for dinner at Gordon Ramsey’s Steakhouse in the Paris Casino next door.  It was a lovely meal hosted by CFI.  The wine was chosen by an astrophysicist who is also an oenophile, and is far more competent than I to select the wines. Here he is instructing the waiter that the bottle he brought was, in fact, not of the vintage noted on the menu. We got another bottle:

My meal included a starter of onion soup, heavy with cheese and thick, onion-flavored broth:

And then the famous Gordon Ramsey beef wellington, which was excellent.

On Saturday, after I speak in the morning, a frew friends and I will head to what is often regarded as Vegas’s best buffet, the Bacchanal at Caesar’s Palace, across the street. You can’t consider a trip to Vegas complete without a visit to a buffet.

Here’s a tour of the Bacchanal. I plan to concentrate on the seafood: crustaceans and oysters, and fill in the gaps with the lamb and a passel of desserts.

Manyeleti: Daily life in a safari camp

August 24, 2024 • 11:15 am

When I wrote about my five-night stay at the Honeyguide Mantobeni Tent Camp in the Manyeleti Game Reserve, I showed photos of the animals we saw. After all, it was the biology that drew me there. But of course it doesn’t hurt to have tasty food, comfortable accommodations, and, above all, two three-hour game drives a day with a good guide!

We had all that, and in this post I’ll show you something about the camp itself, the food, the accommodations, and the vehicles.  I will add that if you can splurge on something like this once in your life, do so. It costs no more than staying in a reasonable hotel in New York City, but with the benefits of seeing buffalo, rhinos, elephants, and a whole host of creatures, not to mention being soothed to sleep at night by the “location growls” of nearby lions.

I reserved about six months ago, as these places fill up quickly, and even though now (the winter in South Africa) the bush is dry and not verdant, it’s a good time to see the animals as they’re more visible. Plus you can count on no rain at all.

It’s about a 15-minute drive from the gate of the reserve to the registration building, itself part of a more luxurious feature of the camp complex: real rooms in a hotel-like structure instead of a tent. But as I was to find out, our “tents” were plenty luxurious.

From reception you’re driven to the lodge of your tent camp: the place where you come to socialize, eat, drink, and leave on the game drives. This is the nerve center of your stay:

It’s a lovely little lodge with a bar, a dining room, a fireplace, and even a wine cellar. Our tents are scattered outside.

Below: the main room of the lodge with the bar at the far end. Here you can sit and read, and there is internet (none in the tents).  In the foreground you can see my computer with picture I’m downloading to prepare a post:

The dining room. I always sat at the far end. Most of the visitors, it seems, come in large tour groups (there were, for example, many Italians, one of whom, to the puzzlement of the waitress, tried to explain that he wanted his pasta cooked al dente).  But there were some individual visitors like me, and we’d converge at the small far table.

There was a constant turnover of visitors, most seeming to stay about two or three nights. After five nights (and ten game drives), I was the longest-staying visitor when I left.

As I said, I was sad to leave. One of the reasons was the swimming pool, which was almost invariably patronized by a herd of elephants who came to drink. The group ranged from a single female (the matriarch, I think) up to 23 pachyderms.  As I worked writing my posts in the late mornings and afternoons, I could watch them.

Only a few people actually went into the pool, and mostly for photos (I didn’t as I had no bathing suit). It was largely a place to watch the elephants:

The schedule:

6:00 a.m.: The sound of a horn and faint drums wakes you up. I set my phone alarm as the wake-up call was barely audible.

6:30 a.m.: Game drive begins: there are coffee, tea, and rusks (an African favorite) in the dining room beforehand if you care to partake. Make sure your bowels and bladder are empty when you set out, as you are not allowed to relieve yourself in the bush!

9:30 a.m.: Return from game drive, wash up, go to your room if need be (I got my computer), and get ready for breakfast.

10:00 a.m.: Breakfast! Hot and hearty: just what you need after a long and sometimes chilly game drive (they provide coffee and rusks in the bush right before you drive back). Here’s the breakfast menu. Portions are copious, but if you’re really hungry you can have more.  I alternated between the “flapjacks” (made with corn and served with honey and bananas instead of syrup) and the “big five” breakfast if I was really hungry. It’s pretty much the Full English Breakfast, complete with baked beans, grilled tomatoes, and fried mushrooms:

There is also juice, toast, muffins, and fruit Here’s one of my Big Five Breakfasts, lacking the beans this time but with potato cakes:

Between breakfast and 2 p.m. you have about 3½ free hours, mostly time that I’d devote to writing my posts at a place where I could watch the elephants.

What about the lodgings? They were excellent. Here is my “tent”. It had a king-sized bed just for me, as well as a bathroom, a couch, and places to store belongings, which are perfectly safe.  This is tent 2F, which I’d recommend:

You have to unzip three zippered flaps to get to your bed; this keeps out mosquitoes, baboons, and other pests.  The “living room”, behind the entrance flap.  You can see the bed to the rear:

My bed. The nights were cold, but there was a heated mattress pad and a comforter that kept me very cozy and warm at night. During the morning game drive they make up your bed and tidy your room. During the evening game drive, they put out the mosquito netting, which completely encompasses your bed. (Although it’s not the wet season, my doctor still prescribed malaria pills for me.)

The bathroom, open to the outdoors at one end, has two sinks, a flush toilet, and two showers (not in stalls) with hot water. Now that is luxury:

The showers, which drain into wooden planks. It was a delight to take showers open partly to the elements, but you have to zip the bathroom flap shut at night to keep the baboons out of your tent (no food allowed in tents, either). You’re advised not to leave your toothbrush or any other personal articles in the bathroom, as the baboons can climb in through the open part and steal them.

In the afternoons I’d work for a few hours, catching up on email and writing posts, all the while watching any elephants who came to the pool. (You’re not allowed to wander about on your own because of possible danger from animals.

At 2 p.m. lunch was served.  Here are some photos. The lunch menu was conveyed verbally, and there was always a choice of at least two main courses as well as dessert.

Ribs:

Dessert: meringue in a shell.

You could also buy wine by the glass or bottle, or order a drink from the bar. They weren’t free, but they were inexpensive and the selection was good. I rarely drink alcohol when traveling, so at best I’d have a cappuccino.

3 p.m.: The second 3-hour game drive begins.  The vehicles we used were converted Toyota Land Cruisers made suitable for driving over very rough roads. Each one seated ten people and the driver. The best seat was by the driver, and ours was the affable and knowledgeable Dan. Since  most people were in groups, they sat in the three seats behind, usually leaving me the prized front seat.

Here are our vehicles. Dan is in the driver’s seat in the left one. (They drive on the wrong side in Africa: a legacy from the Brits.)

A full vehicle setting off:

I’ve already shown you what we saw on our game drives. After all of them I saw every animal I wanted to see, and finished the Big Five on my very last day by seeing an African buffalo. On only one drive did we fail to see anything interesting, but if you want a good shot at seeing most of the iconic animals, I’d recommend a stay of at least four days.

About half an hour before we began the drive back to camp, we’d have a “sundowner”: drinks that we’d specify at lunch. You could have wine, beer, iced tea, gin and tonics, and some nibbles like nuts or chips.  I usually had iced tea or a beer. Here’s my favorite picture of Dan (one I’ve shown before): laughing as he prepared the evening’s G&Ts, everything kept cold in a cooler. I can still hear his laugh and his deep voice, saying “Yaaaaah” for “Yes.”;

Then came the long drive back to camp in the dark (usually at least half an hour). As Dan drove, he swept a powerful flashlight back and forth across the road, not only to see any animals in the road to avoid (we came across several hares), but also to catch the gleam from the eyes of any cats lurking in the bush. We didn’t see any, but I saw every big cat on tap: lion, leopard, and cheetah. I missed the smaller cats: the serval, caracal, and African wildcat. But a picture of a serval from a wildlife rehab center will be coming in a later post.

Home at 6:30, dinner at 7.  Some menus and photos (all desserts!). As you see, the food selection was wide, and except for an occasional tendency to overcook meat, the kitchen did well. As you see, they featured game, but I tended to avoid it after seeing the animals in the wild. (Yes, call me a hypocrite, because I’ve seen cows and pigs on farms but do eat them.ˆ).

It was dark in the dining room and my flash doesn’t work well, so you’ll have to be satisfied with photos of desserts. Stewed guava with vanilla ice cream:

And cake with whipped cream and fruit purée.

The temperature-controlled wine cellar in a glass-fronted room.

So those are the amenities of life in camp. I will miss it, and perhaps some day will visit again. But the day after tomorrow we go to Kruger for five days, and although the accommodations are simple bungalows, the important thing is that I get the chance to see animals again.

Maybe one like this:

South Africa: from the fynbos to the karoo

August 11, 2024 • 8:45 am

I highly recommend that you click on the photos to enlarge them.

On Friday we set out to go to the drier part of the Cape Floristic Region, heading from the lusher fynbos to the karoo, a semi-desert which nevertheless harbors a lot of endemic plants and birds.

But the night before we had a big dinner, whipped up by Rita, the night before. It featured lamb chops, sausages, pap (African cornmeal mush) with tomato sauce, salad, garlic bread, and of course the local Shiraz. As you see, we were not gastronomically deprived.

My plate:

Of course there was the wine of the property: a creditable chenin blanc (I’m amazed they can make wine there at all, much less good wine):

At stops along the way to the karoo, we saw several stuffed specimens of local wildlife, which is sad but I’m sure they were shot a while back before trophy hunting became somewhat taboo.

This is a Verreaux’s eagle (Aquila verreauxii), which has a distinction of extreme prey specificity. According to Wikipedia,

Verreaux’s eagle is one of the most specialized species of accipitrid in the world, with its distribution and life history revolving around its favorite prey species, the rock hyraxes. When hyrax populations decline, the species have been shown to survive with mixed success on other prey, such as small antelopes, gamebirds, hares, monkeys and other assorted vertebrates.

The Cape leopard is a subspecies of the African leopard (Panthera pardus pardus), and there’s only one species in toto. Cape leopards are smaller than those further north (the “normal” leopard), perhaps because prey are sparser and so they evolved to do with less food, which means a smaller body.  Some miscreant shot this one, whose stuffed remains we found in a snack bar/restaurant/shop.

It poured the night we left the lovely Driehoek Farm, and we checked in with the managers, who informed us that the rivers were running high and swift, damaging bridges, turning rivulets into dangerous torrents, and even overturning a car (the occupants survived). Martim carefully got maps of all the rivers, which we hoped would have gone down when we crossed what were identified to us as the Three Major Obstacles. Fortunately, we made them all, though the last (where the car overturned) was the diciest.

Obstacle #1–no problem!

Some flowers we saw heading towards the karoo. This one is unidentified, but may be Helichrysum.

Metalasis sp. (African blombos)

Another unknown flower from the daisy family

A must-see in this part of the karoo are the San people’s (previously called “Bushmen”) rock paintings in the Truitjieskrall Reserve of the Cederberg Mountains (see also here).  Although there are fewer paintings than at some other sites, it was accessible with the purchase of a permit (it gives you the code for the lock), and the surrounding rocks, in whose caves and crevices the San clearly sheltered, are fantastic. Below is the rock complex:

. . . and some of the rocks:

You can se that there are many places to shelter here, and although the San apparently didn’t wear anything above the waist (a mystery to me given the cold), they also had fires and plenty of caves and overhangs:

This is the site where all the paintings are; they are exposed to the elements and, sadly, will eventually disappear. Most of the faces of the human figures, depicted in white instead of the usual red ochre pigments, are already gone.

The entrance to the cave, on whose walls the San did their art, is to the right. I can’t say how old these paintings are as it’s been very hard to date them. The oldest in South Africa appear to be 8,000 years old, and the youngest, depicting ships and wagons of the Europeans, are from the 19th century.

This plaque (click to enlarge) tells how they made and used pigments. Painting was sophisticated, often using fine brushes rather than fingers and hands. Curiously, the later paintings appear to be less fine, made without brushes.

The inside of the cave.  You can see one painting in red at the lower right:

This is identified on another plaque as showing “five women clapping and dancing. The men on either side are postures typical of trance healers. The dances were held regularly to allow trained healers to receive power from the spirit world to heal the sick and help the community.”

I presume this is known from observations of San hunter-gatherers (a few still exist) in modern times.

“A line of six female eland. In the San belief system, eland could help people get close to the spirit world where they could access power for healing and making rain.  Many paintings depict spiritual experiences and show associated animals.”

Clearly a man! But his face, originally painted in white, has disappeared as the white pigments didn’t bond as tightly to the rock as did the white ones

More figures and an unknown animal to the right. San paintings in other places showed elephants, but I doubt that the San could bring them down with their spears, though perhaps they killed young ones.

A line of dots; I don’t know what they represent:

An enlargement of the three figures above holding hands.

More of the gorgeous rock formations:

The cylindrical rock must be simply part of the formation:

Obstacle #3!  This is where a car had overturned the night before. When we arrived before lunch it had been removed, but yet another car had been swept off the road into the rushing water. In the picture below this one, a group of people are about to tow the car out of the water. I don’t know if they succeeded.

The Obstacle. After observing several cars go through the stream, Martim, an intrepid driver, essayed the obstacle and we made it!

We celebrated with ribs for lunch, as a woman at the shop where we stopped said her friend made some wicked ribs there. Well, I’m a BBQ maven, and all I can say is that they were just okay. But with some fries and a beer they hit the spot.

This menu shows South African humor as well as their tremendous love of MEAT, something I didn’t know before I came here. (A local joke is that in South Africa, chicken counts as a vegetable.) Just read the part by the asterisk.

More attempts at humor on another menu board:

Oranges are grown in the karoo, making for a strange sight:

This is melkbos (“milk bush”, Euphorbia burmanii), which exudes a viscous and somewhat poisonous sap when you break the stems (see next photo):

Martim said that the San dipped their spear points and arrowheads into the semi-toxic sap to help bring down the animals.

Our next stop was another Afrikaaner farm that doubled as a motel, one with a clear Wild West theme. One room was called “the Jailhouse,” another “sheriff’s office”, while I had the House With No Name (in the desert, they can’t remember the names!).  I called it, in keeping with the theme, “The Bordello.”  In the dining room (here they feed you) there were displays of saddles, Western cowboy hats, and rifles.  The farm offers horseback riding.

The inside of my room, which has a boiler called a “donkey” that you have to turn on by lighting a fire under it. None of us wanted to do that, even though it was bloody cold. And I mean COLD!  It took me an hour to warm up sufficiently to even think about sleeping, even though I was under a comforter and a thick blanket.

But I had an Afrikaans Bible in my room. The faithful insinuate themselves everywhere, even in the frigid karoo!

The best part of this farm was the home-cooked meals. This is dinner for five people (Martim, Rita, their two daughters, and me), and it’s enough food for at least 15 people (we also had beer and soda). Lamb slices, mutton stew, two quiches, potatoes mixed with eggs, vegetables, vegetarian lasagne, and gravy.

Martim is an inveterate hiker, so he got up at 7 a.m. and walked around the property. He found a hole just dug by an aardvark (Orycteropus afer) as a burrow. (“Aardvark” means “earth pig” in Afrikaans.). Aardvarks are shy and are hard to see, but can dig at the rate of one meter every five minutes. Their evening burrows are from 1-6 meters long.

A footprint nearby, almost surely of the aardvark.

A succulent plant (probably from the iceplant family, Aizoaceae) from the dry areas. Lots of people uproot succulents to take them home for decoration. Not good for the environment.

A view of the karoo:

Martim, PCC(E) and Rita in the karoo, photo by one of their daughters.

On the way back to Capetown, we saw several signs saying “Watch for baboons” or “Be careful of baboons”.  The chacma baboon (Papio ursinus) can be either dangerous, boisterous, ravenous, or all three. You don’t want to be around one of these (I took the photo as we passed them in the car) if it’s had experience with human food. In some places they have even learned the noise that a beeper makes when you use it to open a car door, and have learned to rush to the car and open the door (and get inside) when they hear that noise, hoping to ransack the car for food. Martim was once knocked down by a boisterous chacma that jumped on his back.

. . . and the fulfillment of a culinary dream. Ever since I heard of bunny chow, an Indian-inspired workingman’s food in South Africa, I’ve wanted to try one. Yesterday Martim and Rita, while visiting a friend, happened upon a good place to get bunny chow, and phoned me. I asked for a “quarter bunny,” which you’ll see below. From Wikipedia:

Bunny chow, often referred to simply as a bunny, is an Indian South African fast food dish consisting of a hollowed-out loaf of white bread filled with curry and a serving of salad on the side. It originated among Indian South Africans of Durban. Throughout various South African communities, one can find cultural adaptations to the original version of the bunny chow, which uses only a quarter loaf of bread and is sometimes called a skhambane, kota (“quarter”) or shibobo, a name it shares with sphatlho, a South African dish that evolved from the bunny chow.

. . . The traditional Indian meal was roti and beans, but the roti tended to fall apart as a take-away item. To solve this, the centre portion of a loaf of white bread was hollowed out and filled with curry, then the filling was capped with the portion that was carved out.

. . . Bunny chow was created in Durban, South Africa, which is home to a large community of people of Indian origin.

Here’s a quarter bunny with lamb curry. It was terrific, and you can eat it with your hands, as is the custom, sopping up the curry with the bread removed when the quarter loaf is hollowed out to make a bread bowl (you can also get a half bunny).

Sure good eating, I gar-un-tee! (Photos by Martim.)

p.s. From the balcony of the house, we saw a whale disporting itself in the waters of the bay. This was just a few minutes ago (I’m writing at 8 a.m. South African time on Sunday.)

A stay among the Cape Flora: the Fynbos

August 8, 2024 • 12:30 pm

We took off from Capetown yesterday, and after several hours of driving through farmland, we stopped at what in local argot is called a “farm stall,” but it’s really a combination restaurant, snack shop, food store (they sell all kinds of frozen meat), and preserves, teas, and snacks. Here’s a farm stall (click on all photos to enlarge them; twice to make them really big):

. . . and its chalkboard motto, which immediately made me think of ecology because it’s wrong: flowers do compete with their neighbors if they’re of the same species. This is an ideological statement that ignores biology in favor of aesthetics. (Yes, I’m joking, but not 100%!)

This is the menu (1 South African rand is worth about 6 American cents, so you can see things are cheap. Martim told me that Roosterkoek (no, it’s not pronounced “rooster cock”) was a local item: a sandwich made on a special kind of bread. And he recommended the Boerwars Roosterkoek, made from a local sausage. So that’s what I had, with a soda.

Here’s the sausage sandwich. The bread (“Roosterkock,” or grilled bread) is delightful: thick and chewy. It wold be ideal for hamburgers or other juicy fillings.

The inside of the sandwich:

This is a cape weaver (Ploceus capensis), which weaves nests. A lovely yellow bird, with the males being especially yellow.  They hopped around skittishly hoping for crumbs from the rooster cock.

A nest that the males weave, with the photo taken from Wikipedia. The species is polygynous, with a male weaving a group of nests at the rate of about one a week, and the quality of the nest is what attracts the females. A male with mate with all the females that are attracted to the nest he builds.

JMK, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Rita studies the sociable weaver (Philetairus socius) found further north. It’s a fascinating species which builds large group nests that can have up to several hundred birds. She and her team band each one and take blood samples, so they know the relatedness of every bird. Curiously, they have “helpers at the nest” during breeding time, and not all the helpers are relatives, which is an unsolved mystery. Here’s a sociable weaver nest on a power pole; photo from Wikipedia:

Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net)., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Local endemic squash plants (probably the Kalahari Melon) that are, I think, eaten by antelopes. I’m not sure of the plant species. There are several antelopes in the area.

And so we enter the fynbos, a small but important and diverse vegetation zone, one of the six “floristic kingdoms” of the world, and the smallest one. Here from Wikipedia is a diagram of all the kingdoms, and you can see that “capensis” (the fynbos, or “Cape Floristic Region“) is the smallest. As Wikipedia notes, the Region  “is home to over 9,000 vascular plant species, of which 69 percent are endemic.”

Dietzel, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

We are staying in a fancy “hut” (more like a hotel) a long drive into the Cederberg Mountains over dirt roads. It’s located on the Driehoek Farm, which not only rears animals, but takes in tourists for hiking and exploring the fynbos, and also harbors the highest vineyards in South Africa, which means the highest vineyards in Africa.

This is a fancy “hut”, as you can see from the appearance of my bedroom:

Last night we had a fancy dinner in our fancy hut, accompanied by the farm’s wine, in this case a 2023 Syrah. It was very good. They also make a white wine and a pinotage.

The adults shared three ostrich filets (my first ostrich), while the two daughters had pasta. These look like beef filets, and I asked for Rita to cook mine rare.

Dinner: potatoes, ostrich filets, young broccoli stems, and bread, washed down with a syrah.

The farm-y part of the farm, but all around are trails that go up to the mountains, with waterfalls, climbing, and vegetation.  Pig and horse below.

The pig, which was very wart-hoggy with bristles and fangs, a precursor of what I’ll see when I meet Ozy in a week.

And a backlit horse:

What I was told were baboon tracks, and the only species here is the chacma baboon (Papio ursinus). They can be quite aggressive when going after tourists’ food, and we’re told to keep our doors shut lest they invade the kitchen.

Martim thought these may have been mongoose tracks:

. . . and two sets of antelope tracks, probably made by small antelopes like common duikers (Sylvicapra grimmia), or perhaps the Cape grysbok.

I was told that this hole was where a local porcupine dug up a tuber:

Views from the farm:

Prickly purple gorse (Muraltia heisteria):

Some of the most striking plants in the fynbos are those in the genus Protea, also called “sugarbushes” because of their sugar-rich nectar. (The national flower of South Africa is the King Protea (Protea cynaroides). Go have a look at the flower at the link. It’s not exactly flowering time here yet, but we could see old flowers on this species (there are several dozen, 92% of them endemic to the Cape Floristic Region.

This is the Grey Sugarbush (Protea laurifolia):

Another view of the prickly purple gorse:

Where there’s a niche, there’s a plant. Here we have a Babiana, probably of the species ambigua (see below), growing out of a moss

Purple gorse and unidentified plant:

Grey sugarbush:

Cape Snow (Syncarpa sp.)

An open flower of the gray sugarbush:

Cone bush (Leucadendron sp.):

Grey sugarbush flower at its peak:

More fynbos:

Baboon cabbage (Othonna quinquedentata):

Carwilliam True-Eye (Euryops speciosissimus):

View to the North. I had the Southern Cross pointed out to me last night (the stars are fantastic here since there is no light pollution), and the Milky Way spread across the sky like a huge cloud. When I looked at it through 8X Swarovski binoculars, you could see that the cloud actually comprised billions and billions of stars.

Professor Ceiling Cat in the fynbos; photo by Rita. It is cold here today!

Sour Fig (Carpobrotus edulis):

Vygie, Possibly Lampranthus:

A panorama of a small waterfall with one of Martim and Rita’s daughters. The next two photos absolutely require enlargement.

Another panorama:

Paintbrush lily, genus Haemanthus. Young leaves that will produce a shoot and a beautiful red flower. The leaves are flat against the ground.

Babiana, probably of the species ambigua.

Rita by a termite mound (yes, there are termites inside) I’m told they are much larger in Kruger:

Tomorrow we’re on our way to another locale on the Great Circle Tour.

Corrections welcome if you’re an expert.

Thanks to Martim for the identifications.

Lunch and a book in the USA

August 7, 2024 • 8:00 am

While staying at my sister and brother-in-law’s house near Dulles Airport, I encountered a few things of interest. The first is an arrival lunch at Willard’s BBQ near Dulles, and it was crowded, understandable in view of how good the BBQ was, especially for this area. Here’s my lunch of “burnt beef ends” (hard to find, a mixture of crunchy and juicy parts from brisket), along with two “vegetables” (mac and cheese and a fantastic potato salad), BBQ sauce (not needed) cornbread and, of course, sweet iced tea. I’d recommend this place if you are in the area.

And I had a look at the Virginia History textbook that my brother-in-law had when he was about 13.  He remembered it as having grossly distorted the horrors of slavery, which it did in a big way.

My sister found a copy of the book online, and I was appalled to see how slavery was described: as a great benefit to slaves, who got vocational education and had kindly masters and good working conditions. It was disgusting. Have a look at how, as kids, we were taught about slavery in Virginia.

The book:

An arriving enslaved person with his family, all decked out in fancy clothes and greeting his new “master” with glee. The family, too, is all happy and spiffy. The reality, of course, was far different, with slave families packed into the holds of the ships, with those who survived sold off soon after being kidnapped from Africa to the U.S., and families often being separated.

Part of the propaganda; read it!

Amsterday 6

May 20, 2024 • 11:15 am

I arrived in Amsterdam a week from yesterday, and left yesterday, so I had six days of work+vacation, two of which were occupied by work.  It was certainly an eventful week, tooling around Amsterdam when the weather was mostly beautiful and warm, making lovely new Dutch friends, giving a talk, and being deplatformed for the first time, which I intend to write about for another venue. (Stay tuned.) I also had good Dutch food, went to a great concert by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and met Toon, a black cat who drinks by putting his head, back, and paw under running water and then licking off the drops. Today’s installment will report on my final adventures.

First, though, I want to thank my hosts—now my new Dutch friends—who put me up, fed me, took me around, made arrangements for my talks and ran interference for The Great Deplatforming. They were a great bunch! Given the Cancel Culture of Amsterdam, I won’t name them or show their photos (save for the ones with whom we re-enacted our deplatformed discussion on video), but they know who they are.

First, Toon, the only Dutch cat I know, a friendly fellow with that weird way of drinking water. Because he’s black with thick fur (he’s part Maine Coon, I’m told), he likes to keep cool by lying on this shaded chair in the garden:

Toon’s owners have a collection of old Dutch tiles. These four have a cat painted on them, and it’s not a very good likeness of a cat. Look at the horizontal whiskers, the teeth sticking out, and, above all, the human-like face.  These were probably about 200 years old, and you’d think that they would have learned to paint cats by then!

Here is a genuine pair of wooden shoes actually used by a human: one of my hosts.  I did not try them on. These, windmills, and tulips are the archetypal symbols of Holland.

Beginning spot for a walk downtown. This is the Central (railroad) Station of Amsterdam, the way to go anywhere and the terminus of many tram and bus lines as well.  There were tons of boat tours going on (tourist season in Amsterdam is now all year long), and the canals were clogged with these boats.

“Our Lord in the Attic”  (Dutch original name below ) is a hidden Catholic church constructed in the upper three stories of an Amsterdam home. It was built at a time when the city was Protestant but when Catholic services were still allowed—so long as they were not out in the open. As Wikipedia notes, the church. . .

is a 17th-century canal house, house church, and museum in the city center of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The Catholic Church was built on the top three floors of the canal house during the 1660s. It is an important example of a “schuilkerk”, or “clandestine church” in which Catholics and other religious dissenters from the seventeenth century Dutch Reformed Church, unable to worship in public, held services. The church has been open as a museum since 28 April 1888, and has 85,000 visitors annually.

It apparently functioned as a church for about two hundred years. This is the sign in the entry, which also shows the church itself (better photo below):

The church is located on the top three floors on the building at the extreme right; photo was taken from the other side of the canal.  As you can see, there’s no sign of a church.

Before you climb up to the church, you go through the regular house downstairs, owned by the guy who gutted the top three floors to build the church.  There’s thus a slice of upper-class Dutch life to see as well. Here’s the kitchen stove with a cooking “burner” on top of it.

The kitchen has many of the original tiles, including skating (I think), kite-flying, and cats. Here are some examples:

I think this is skating but I’m not sure:

Is this a cat?

The owner’s “box bed”. I was told that the Dutch slept sitting up back then, fearing that lying down while sleeping could lead to death:

The toilet for the regular house. If you lift the lid there’s a hole, but I don’t know where it goes (probably down to the canal).

The interior of the church, which occupies the top three floors. It’s a complete Catholic church, with one altar room (with a Mary statue), a confessional, and a room for the priest to change clothes.

It’s not large, of course, and you can see the vertical beams and crossbeams necessary to hold the whole thing up, since gutting three floors would cause serious weakening of the structure. Hidden in the altar is also a clever fold-out lectern from which the priest could expound after the services.

The confessional. You would kneel in the right room, and talk to the priest in the left room through a wooden screen:

Two views of the church organ:

The priest’s bed, also a box bed:

On the walk home there was not one but TWO stores that sold rubber ducks. It’s very curious but they were doing big business. Here’s one of the two stores:

There were ducks representing all avocations and professions; you can see business ducks, German ducks in lederhosen, academic ducks, chef ducks, and so on.

The interior, with a myriad of quackers:

This must be a John Lennon duck, but touting geese. (BTW, we passed the old Amsterdam Hilton, when John and Yoko had their “bed-in” right after they were married in 1969, using the even to promote world piece.

There was also a “Cannabis Museum”, and I think I went into a similar one on my last visit to Amsterdam. They don’t sell weed there; for that you must go to a coffee shop. If you’re looking for the stuff in Amsterdam, I’m told that any “Coffee Shop” in which “Coffee” uses the English spelling, also has cannabis. (“Coffee” in Dutch is spelled “koffie”.)

And of course these are ubiquitous. Even if you don’t think you’d like french fries the Dutch way, served with mayonnaise, give it a try. I now like them even better that way than with catsup:

Nearby was the famous Dam Square, one of the few large open squares in the downtown. This year it was filled with protests—not only pro-Palestinian protests but Tamil protests from Sri Lanka, Falung Gong folks from China, and even vegans.  Here’s one anti-Israel display. Note the Star of David with a skull in it and the misspelled “westers imperialism”:

We stopped at a small cafe outside of town for a beer and lunch. I was told that if I wanted something really local, I should try “Bitterballen,” which Wikipedia says are actually pretty complicated to make. They are. . . .

. . . . a Dutch meat-based snack, made by making a very thick stew thickened with roux and beef stock and generously loaded with meat, refrigerating the stew until it firms, and then rolling the thick mixture into balls which then get breaded and fried. Seasonings in the base stew usually include onions, salt and pepper, parsley and nutmeg.

You dip them in mustard. The outside is crispy but beware: the inside is piping hot. Inside is a beefy mixture with the texture of mashed potatoes. They were very good, especially with a beer.

And an appropriate picture taken the day before I winged my way home. This is a beautiful Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica) hanging around the cafe, perhaps hoping for a snack.

So it’s farewell to the Netherlands, though I’m sure I’ll return.  Thanks again to all my friends who took a lot of trouble to show me around and introduce me to Dutch (and Balinese) cuisine, arrange for my talks and for a video re-do of The Deplatformed Discussion, take me to hear fine music, show me signt of touristic interest, and let me meet a cat who drinks weirdly.